Stewart back with Adrian College football team

There was something missing with the 2016 Adrian College football team.

The Bulldogs went 4-6, the first losing season since 2001, and didn't have a rusher gain more than 500 yards for the first time since 2009.

Junior running back Emmanuel Stewart believes if he was in the backfield, Adrian would've at least went 5-5, and Stewart is less than 500 yards shy of breaking the school's all-time rushing yards record.

“Some of the games that we lost,” Stewart said, “I knew if I was just to play, I could've made a difference. I'm not going to say I could've made the big difference, but I know I could've played a part in winning some of those close games.

“It was sickening to my stomach to see, because I created a bond with these guys. It was really tough for me.”

In Stewart's sophomore year, he rushed for a program single-season record 1,487 yards and scored 12 touchdowns.

His junior year was going to be a big one.

Given that he rushed for more than 1,000 yards in his first two seasons and scored at least 11 rushing touchdowns a season, he was on pace to break the program records in both categories in his junior year.

However, his junior season is coming up in 2017, rather than 2016, after he was academically ineligible in 2016.

Stewart found out two days before camp opened in 2016 that he missed eligibility by a narrow margin.

“He was close last year, and he had to take a summer class and needed an A-minus and got a B, so it was frustrating,” said Adrian coach Jim Deere.

It was tough not to notice Stewart's absence on the field.

But Deere felt his team lost more than yards and touchdowns with Stewart gone.

“The biggest thing I think we lost last year is his leadership,” Deere said. “It wasn't as far as running back position, because David Nutter is every bit the running back of guys we've had here in a long time, because he is a very capable and powerful back.

“The one thing without having Stew last year that really hurt us was the big-play capability, but also leadership. The kid leads by example. He's not a ‘me’ guy, and it's a beautiful thing to have him back.”

Nutter looked to fill the void, but his season was shut down after an injury in the fourth game of the season. He finished with 289 yards and six touchdowns.

Nutter is also back and will be looking to provide a second threat out of the Bulldogs' backfield.

“We both have comeback years this year,” Nutter said. “He's coming back, I'm coming back from injury and we're both real excited. Having that two-headed monster in the backfield is really helping our offense be more versatile.”

While the team missed Stewart in the backfield and Stewart missed carrying the ball for Adrian, Deere and Stewart both said it might have been for the best to have Stewart take a season off.

Not only to get his grades right, but also to be around for the birth of his first child, daughter Skylar.

“(The semester off) gave me a big perspective,” Stewart said. “Seeing my daughter grow up and watching her change and grow her personality and seeing her facial features change and look like me was really eye opening. If I would've come to play football, I wouldn't have seen any of that. I would've been missing my daughter.”

Stewart also realized quickly with his daughter here and him out of school that he needed to work and provide for his new family.

Stewart got a job at a lumberyard and then realized something else.

“I knew I had to work, and that I wasn't going to like it,” Stewart said. “I had to wake up at 6 in the morning. But it wasn't about me anymore. It was about my daughter.”

Stewart is 480 yards shy of Chris Clay's program record 2,969 yards rushing set from 2002 to 2005 and nine rushing touchdowns shy of Wayne Roedel's record of 32 set in 1984 and from 1986 to 87.

But the records aren't what fuels Stewart.

Skylar is what fuels him.

“Seeing her lit a fire under me to drive and succeed in life because, like I said before, it's not about me anymore,” Stewart said. “I don't live for me anymore. I live for my daughter, and I want to give her everything she wants, plus everything she needs.”

When Stewart returned to Adrian, he posted near a 3.0 GPA, putting him at good standing academically.

Stewart is focusing his academics into a degree in social work.

“I've always been that type of person who wanted to give back to my community,” Stewart said. “I know a lot of kids where I come from (St. Petersburg, Florida), a lot of kids go to college, but they don't stay. That's what drove me. I see a lot of talent where I'm from, and they never had anyone who really cared about them, it was just football. So I want to work with people and give kids the chance to be whatever they want to be.”